I saw the stories/tweets about how Trump owes money to Bank of China. I looked at the WSJ story from 2012, when the deal was arranged:

"In November, Bank of China became the first Chinese lender to participate in the sale of U.S. commercial-mortgage-backed securities."

"Bank of China joined a group of banks in a $950 million loan to finance a 43-story building at 1290 Avenue of the Americas in midtown Manhattan that was then packaged into bonds." https://on.wsj.com/2xZwvJD 

A securitization deal generally involves the bank/s making a loan, then turning around to sell that loan to other investors in the form of bonds.

Once the debt is packaged in this way and sold, creditors that collect from the securitized product are the bondholders.

Stories/filings I have seen don't present details on whether Bank of China or some other part of the bank decided to invest/hang on to some portion of the products sold. But the originators of the loans usually securitize loans aren't doing so to continue owning those loans.

WSJ story reference earlier also notes:

"State-controlled Bank of China earns a profit from selling loans via CMBS. It also frees up its balance sheet to make more loans."

In a typical securitization, the issuer/s sell the loan as a MBS to make money and then move on.

It's possible that some part of Bank of China or another Chinese state-affiliated investor bought some of the CMBS linked to this $950 mln loan to the 1290 Avenue of the Americas property. But what I have seen just says BoC was among the banks that made the underlying loan.

This is a roundabout way of saying that the stories that I have seen from @politico et al don't seem to account for what securitization is and how it normally functions in the reporting. I do not work for them and I do not know why, but this is a major hole in the stories.

And BoC is one of several the lenders that made the loan. Not every bank will have the appetite/capital for a loan of this size but if their involvement becomes a problem, it should not be hard to find a different bank considered more politically appropriate to replace BoC.

There area many legitimate lines of inquiry on Trump and his business dealings, but this particular story line appears to miss the mark. I could be wrong, of course, and more material emerges that changes this assessment. But I have not seen it yet.

I try to avoid criticising other media (partly because I have seen people openly trash stories that my employer/s have published that turns out to be right) and not here to lead an inquisition. I just think the stories on this clearly don't get what securitization is.

I can't remember the name of the gentleman (banking industry exec) who had the misfortune of explaining securitization to me during a summer internship (maybe Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2005) on my way to a B.S. in journalism. It is a form of financial sorcery, but thank you sir

I remember this conversation after all this time because the gentleman described it as a way for banks to continue lending money and support the economy.

And the GFC happened...